COMMENT | For the longest time, DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has been the Chinese bogeyman. If you wanted to attack any elements of extremism in the Chinese community, you attacked him first.

When former premier Najib Abdul Razak wanted to revive his political base with the right-wing Malay factions, he made Lim the primary target, even though he wasn’t in the corridors of power.

When Abdul Hadi Awang and PAS wanted to resuscitate their political existence as it waned by the day, they pointed to Lim and his DAP to show the growing Chinese threat.

When any struggling politician wants to adopt identity politics to survive, they fling their criticism at Lim, saying that he is the worst of the Chinese in the Malaysian political mudslinging dictionary.

Notwithstanding the daily issuance of press releases highlighting his vision of a Malaysian dream where every person under the sun has a place regardless of race, religion, belief, and creed, the attacks were consistent...